Damerow Ford

My beautiful wife drives a 2004 Saturn L300 in excellent condition and my old car was a 2002 Saturn SL (which I still love and have handed down in my family due to high mileage). Being a token Saturn family, we were faced with the sad reality that Saturns are not available in newer models... SO..., I did my research and looked at MANY cars, as I knew I was going to be keeping this next one for a while too. That's when I found the 2013 Fusion Hybrid. Looked luxurious and got reportedly better MPG than my Saturn (which was 33-39MPG). BIG REQUIREMENT for any replacement vehicle, which really narrowed the field even after 10-11 years of time. The only issue was that I was not planning on settling for any trade-offs on this new vehicle as I tend to keep them for a while; I wanted exactly what I wanted in the car and gave about 6 Dealers the chance to find it. Being military I believed that allowing a buyer program through my bank was the way to go as it gave me a break in cost. That meant an e-purchase though, which I'm not a fan of in general as I can't get to know the personalities behind the sale. Upside is that I saw more of the personalities than I thought I would. I can tell you which dealerships were stalling for new inventory, which hadn't looked and which decided I was too particular and didn't want my business. After a few offers of 95% solutions being turned down, Damerow Ford in Beaverton was the first to tap out and tell me that a Custom Order was extremely likely. Despite this, I gave the other Dealers some extra (soon to be discovered, wasted) time. That's when I went back to the ones whom knew the reality and weren't afraid to tell me. Mind you, this is a big deal in the car industry because that means that I would need to wait for the order which took around 11 weeks (over the Winter Holidays). That negates the impulse buy aspect. On the flip side, also a big deal for me since I am military stationed in a different state and needed a heads up to fly up and get the vehicle from my state of residence - OR. (Praise be no sales tax!). So the order went in ... wait... status update ... wait ... and then the long awaited call came in with delivery confirmed. After the call, I arrange with my command to fly up later that week in the only very small window I could manage to retrieve the car. Timing is everything and I was concerned that some inconsistency on the dealership's end would delay an otherwise well planned retrieval. My concerns were completely baseless -- Damerow Ford came through though in every sense! From when my flight landed at 7:30pm, my father (whom picked me up) and I went straight to the Dealership which was open until 9pm. Now I had already scheduled to get the car at opening the next day, but was reassured that I could go see her as she was stowed overnight in their service garage to keep her in pristine delivery shape for the next morning. So we stopped off. While not planned, but offered, I hadn't expected much of a warm welcome from the late night staff or even much of an acknowledgement. I was waaay off. The first salesman that walked up introduced himself and I informed him that I was picking up my car the next morning and he smiled, knew my name and walked us over to where she was housed for the night. Being that this was the first time that I had seen her, we looked at everything. The Salesman politely recognized that the situation was well in hand and backed away giving us 10-20min of time to check her out. No pressure, no small talk, no sense of frustration in dealing with another salesman's customer (whom he'd not be making any money from)... nothing. Just professional courtesy that I had assumed dead in the industry. Elated, as she was everything I had intended and hoped for, we turned in for the night. Returning the next morning, my concerns arose again as I prepared for some protracted sales process, when I really needed to hit the road for my drive south back to my home station in CA. I was prepped knowing that they opened an hour earlier than the finance guy was scheduled to arrive and that we'd have to kill some time, but much to my surprise, my salesman (Dale Monahan) had already smoothed that hiccup out by asking if the finance guy was able to come a little earlier due to my rare circumstances. I'm sure that a morning coffee and doughnut were bought in trade, but it happened and he was in about 7 minutes after we were. Process went quickly and smoothly despite my desire for custom Crater Lake vanity plates. ;) I was on the road early enough to make Redding (CA) an early stop and drive through the next morning to my command. This is an uncommon situation handled very professionally by a top-notch dealership. I write this with no reservation as to my sincerity and have already spoken to a few other Oregonian service members about the experience. I fully expect that they may be asked to repeat the process in the near term :) The car is amazingly beautiful and the buzz it is creating down here in CA is generating a lot of discussion. In every conversation and test drive though, Damerow Ford is getting their reputation out there... because they earned it and I'm all about ensuring a good turn is rewarded. - It will be back up in the area later this year for my 20yr HS reunion, and we'll probably swing by Damerow, just to say "Thank You" again...